Meet Kathy: Secrets of the Rich and Famous
by Maxine CassKathy Sudeikis has been booking travel for decades from what some might consider an unlikely location: Kansas City, Kansas.
The vice president of corporate relations for Acendas Vacation Travel and a former ASTA president, Sudeikis is proud of her decades arranging travel for a roster of celebrity clientele.
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Yul Brynner, for whom she arranged both his The King and I tour and later funeral, was just one of many entertainment industry clients.
Family ties
Sudeikis has an upclose and personal connection to the celebrity world.
Her son, Jason Sudeikis, is an actor, comedian and former member of Saturday Night Live, and her younger brother, George Wendt, is a comedian and a former star of the television sitcom Cheers.
But Sudeikis began booking celebrity travel long before Jason entered the business and also before she served as president of ASTA from 2004 to 2006.
‘Regionally desirable’
It began in the early eighties with Sudeikis representing ASTA—and the travel agency community—on morning television programs in New York City including CBS This Morning and The Today Show.
“I have always felt like I was regionally desirable,” Sudeikis quipped.
She said she represented Middle America, something the television shows were looking for instead of “one of those men talking heads,” she added.
From those appearances—and others like them—Sudeikis developed a relationship with CBS executive, everyone from 60 Minutes producers to heads of departments, she said.
“While they didn’t need me for their business travel—and that was sometimes the only travel agent relationship they had—they trusted me from being on the show [shows] . . . to do their vacation travel from wherever they were.”
In 1993, she brought her leisure travel expertise to Kansas City-based All About Travel, while continuing to work with her entertainment industry clients with support from the agency’s leisure team.
In 2012 All About Travel became Acendas, which handles corporate travel, meetings and incentives, and leisure travel.
War stories
Sudeikis has a host of stories from her frontline dealings with celebrities.
She’s had celebrity clients who wouldn’t sit next to their co-stars; one always had to sit on the left side of the plane.
She once sent cloth diapers to the remote Moroccan desert for a desperate film star who had her babies with her and ran out of diapers.
One producer traveling to Costa Rica years ago would not have been able to rent the car she had booked for him if Sudeikis hadn’t thought to mention that having a beard would nix the rental.
Another celebrity wanted a train trip because their boy was a train fan.
“They boarded in Florida and worked their way up to New York, but they were in these suites on one end of the train, so we bought out the whole car so people wouldn’t come into it.
“But we had contingency plans all along the way, Savannah, N.C. and somewhere in New Jersey, that if they got spotted we would take them off the train and put them on a plane,” Sudeikis recalled.
“So I had to have hotel rooms in each of those cities. As the plane taxied in each of the cities, I would release the space and the drivers.”
Keeping your hand in
Sudeikis has continued to book celebrity travel in addition to making media appearances for Acendas—on national and local television, radio and in print media—and ASTA.
Big Slick—Kansas City Children’s Mercy Hospital’s annual fundraiser—brings her son Jason’s celebrity buddies, also from the area, back each year.
Jason, with Paul Rudd (The 40-Year-Old Virgin among other films), Rob Riggle (the movie 21 Jump Street) and Eric Stonestreet (the television show, Modern Family), invite their celebrity friends as well.
Their 40-strong presence in town raised $1 million for the charity this year.
And Sudeikis books every detail for Big Slick.
She also is on hand any time to book travel for loyal Kansas City Royals fan Jason and his wife, actress Olivia Wilde, to events like the seventh game of this year’s World Series.
Be realistic
Sudeikis knows both the rewards and pitfalls of dealing with celebrity clients’ needs.
For most clients, she says, it starts with word of mouth.
Even though Sudeikis herself is no longer on call at a moment’s notice, she knows that, “It’s all about service, being available 24/7.”
“With cell phones, it really is demanding, I’ve worked with people who have not one, but two assistants, so you’re absolutely on call.”
Don’t be starry-eyed over the names everyone recognizes, she advised fellow agents.
“Producers and directors are the money, they are not support staff,” Sudeikis said.
“They are bigger and more important, in the long run, than the actors,” she added. “It’s just we know the actors by name. I’m not afraid to say, ‘So and so is a senior producer at 60 Minutes, you don’t want to mess this up.’”
Special needs—celebrity style
Celebrity clients have particular needs and, Sudeikis insisted, “Integrity and anonymity is paramount.”
What does she do?
“We pay a lot of attention to gawkers and paparazzi. We arrange all the entrances and exits by limo or motorcoach out the back entrances. We hire security.”
Contingency plans, double bookings and responding instantly to changes are keys to keeping entertainment clients happy.
And, don’t forget that celebrity client needs time off, away from it all, Sudeikis said.
“Spend a lot of time researching really out of the way places,” she said. “It may start out as a celebrity hangout but then it becomes a place people want to go because they read about it in US—it all affects my leisure business in a very positive way.”
